X-men: Days of Future (Undoing the) Past - A Painfully Detailed Review

When it comes to providing quality awesome to the fine folks to who follow this mess of drunken ramblings some call a blog, I am fully willing to put myself through plenty of punishment. I will endure hangovers, brain damage, and strange burn marks on my ass that I don't remember getting after blacking out at a rave in Miami. That's how dedicated I am. Now it's easier for me in some respects because sometimes pain gives me a boner. But what I just did is nowhere near as enjoyable as paying a couple of strippers to bite my nipple and choke me while I touch myself. Since I know some fans would be clamoring for it, I sucked it up and did it. I saw X-men: Days of Futures Past.

Now I had planned to see this movie at some point, preferably when it came out on cable so I could go to the bathroom during commercial breaks and throw up when I needed. But I decided to just bite the bullet, sneak some whiskey into a movie theater, and saw the movie so that I can at least give the impression that I know what the fuck I'm talking about when I discuss it. Sure, I left drunk, but I also left with a full assessment of this movie that was supposed to give the X-men movies a fresh start.

Let's start by getting one thing out of the way. X-men: Days of Futures Past is NOT as awful as X3 or Wolverine Origins or The Wolverine. But again, that's like saying punch in the jaw feels better than a kick in the balls. The bar for quality in the X-men movies has been set so fucking low that Homer Simpson has the athletic ability to jump it. So making a movie that didn't make fans want to violently shit out their intestines through their eye sockets wasn't very hard. However, that doesn't mean it was worth massaging Bryan Singer's ego.

Because that's really the impression I got when I saw this movie. X-men: Days of Futures Past was all about ego. There's a very salient scene that was blatantly spoiled in a trailer where Xavier and Magneto have this little exchange:

Xavier: You took the things that meant most to me.

Magneto: Well maybe you should have fought harder for them.

Then Magneto fucks up the plane to make his point, which is a pretty effective way to win an argument. But when I saw this, I got the sense that this same conversation happened at some point behind the scene.

Bryan Singer: You destroyed something that meant so much to me.

Brett Ratner: Well maybe you should have fought harder for it.

That really is what this is about. Singer himself stated outright that this movie was meant to fix the steaming mountain of shit that Brett Ratner created when he spewed out X3 through his colon. But let us not forget the context of that epic tragedy. Singer is the one that ditched the X-men movies. Ratner was just the dipshit Fox hired to try and replace him. Singer put Ratner in a position to desecrate his own mountains of shit and for what? So he could make a movie that turned Superman into a fucking deadbeat dad? I'm sorry, Mr. Singer, but you have nobody to blame but yourself for this shit.

And that is very much the same situation that Charles Xavier finds himself in. He just fucking up and quit, turning into a burned out Saturday Night Fever wannabe after he lost his team and his students. And it wasn't like Magneto took them from him. They all got drafted into the Vietnam War because back in the 60s and 70s, public lynchings of minorities were less tolerated so the the government did the next best thing and sent their asses to war. Yes, it's a dick move. But it's an even bigger dick move to not do dick about it.

It's only when Xavier and the rest of the surviving X-men in the dystopian world of 2023 concoct the plan to send Wolverine back to the past to give his younger self a good kick in the ass. This in and of itself reeks of the same bullshit that made X3 such an infuriating subject for drunken X-men fans. In the same way Wolverine was forced into the main role that Cyclops should have had in X3, Wolverine is forced into the main role that Kitty Pryde should have had in X-men Days of Futures Past. At the very least, this time Kitty Pryde still plays a significant role. Unfortunately, she plays the role Rachel Grey should've played, but that's to be expected since Rachel Grey's parents were fucking killed. So from the beginning, this movie walks the same shit-stained path of X3.

However, it doesn't stay on that path. X-men Days of Futures Past actually relies less on shitty action and more on actual plot. There is a greater emphasis on making character moments that actually bring out a little emotion. The problem is those emotions still ring hollow. At no point in this movie does it make anyone forget just how badly the previous X-men movies were fucked. These emotions feel like nothing more than teases, like a stripper only pretending to take her top off. They never feel totally sincere.

That's not to say there isn't a concerted effort, but they leave me more confused than touched. Like why the fuck would Mystique get all weepy and teary-eyed over the deaths of Emma Frost, Azazel, or Banshee? There was absolutely no material in this movie or in X-men First Class to establish that she gave more than a partial fuck about them. I understand that they're all mutants and they're all supposed to be one big happy mutant brotherhood, but it's hard to take those emotions seriously when we have to just assume that Mystique, a character who has given fewer fucks than anyone in the X-men comics for the past decade, was actually really close to her teammates.

That's another thing that made me wish I snuck in another bottle of whiskey into the theater. A lot of the characters from X-men First Class were dead before this movie even began. Apparently, they had all been captured and subject to Nazi style torture by Bolivar Trask. No flashbacks. No teaser scene. They're all just dead and that's supposed to be what sets Mystique on the path to killing Trask, which somehow ushers in the dark and dangerous future that needs to be undone.

And that's yet another thing. Mystique is supposed to have killed Trask in 1973. And somehow THIS was supposed to be the trigger point. Yet in that time, the events of X1, X2, and X3 were able to transpire. Xavier said it himself. Trask's death is what kickstarted the Sentinel program. Yet his X-men, with all their power, did absolutely jack shit about it in all that time. The X-men are many things, but they're not nearly as inept as the fucking government. It lacks so many details, the least of which involves Bolivar Trask being alive and black in X2. Those are details that can be ignored in some circumstances, but this movie is trying to squeeze itself into the same universe as every other X-men movie. And therein lies the biggest flaw of X-men Days of Futures Past.

In Singer's effort to save his baby and his ego, he forgets that there are a fuckton of inconsistencies that should've made X-men First Class a reboot from the get go. 

First off, why the fuck is Bolivar Trask in X2, black, and not dead?

Second, how the fuck did Xavier and Magneto team up in X3 to recruit a young Jean Grey when they were clearly mortal enemies?

Third, how was Xavier able to walk when he met a young Jean Grey in X3 and still wield his telepathic powers when this movie established that so long as he took this drug to treat his legs, he couldn't use his telepathy?

Fourth, how is it that Xavier and Beast developed a serum that effectively suppressed their powers back in fucking 1973, yet they claimed they couldn't help mutants like Rogue or Cyclops, who couldn't control their powers?

Fifth, if a cure for mutant powers was developed that long ago, why the fuck was it such a big deal in X3?

Sixth, if Emma Frost is dead, then who the fuck was that same diamond-skinned woman in Wolverine Origins?

Seventh, if the Sentinels had working models as far back as 1973, why the fuck didn't they ever show up sooner? William Stryker knew about them. Yet he didn't bother using them when he attacked the X-men in X2?

Eighth, after Magneto demonstrates his power by taking an entire fucking football stadium and plop it down around the White House, how is it that Richard fucking Nixon, of all Presidents, basically shrugs his shoulders when Mystique decides to stop him? This is Richard Nixon, the man who began the drug war and spied on anyone who he couldn't make his bitch. Yet he's not paranoid enough to come up with some insane weapon to stop mutants like Magneto?

I could go on. There are so many inconsistencies in this movie that the idea that it takes place int he same universe as the other X-men movies makes no fucking sense, no matter how much LSD or weed anyone ingests. The only thing that can be said about this movie is that it did succeed in one important way. It completely undid the events of every other X-men movie, from X1 to The Wolverine. None of that shit happened. In the end, Cyclops, Jean Grey, and Professor Xavier are alive. Rogue is still at the school and not swapping spit with Iceman, hinting that her powers aren't cured. The Xavier Institute is still intact and Wolverine didn't turn into a complete fucking pussy by ditching the team to run off and hump Mariko Yashida. I admit this did make the movie feel satisfying. All these other X-men movies that I hated with the passion of a billion lit farts have officially been nullified. However, the same problems still persist.

Characters like Rogue are still horribly underdeveloped and utterly different from their entire history in the comics. Cyclops is still just the pretty boy who acts as an obstacle to Wolverine humping whoever he wants to hump at the moment. Jean Grey is still this passionless, dead-eyed barbie doll that exists only to turn Wolverine into Edward Cullen. Storm still lacks the grace and charisma that she's supposed to have because it doesn't jive with Halle Barry's acting style. And since Singer is staying on board, there's no reason to believe this shit will change, even with the complete reboot that this movie created.

So what more can I say about X-men: Days of Futures Past that I can't say while sober? In terms of comic book movies, this one has to be graded on a reverse curve because every other X-men movie sucks so horribly that it's impossible to compare it to other movies like the Avengers or Captain America: The Winter Soldier. But it did at least attempt to catch up to the new, refined style of comic book movies by undoing the shitty movies that came before it. 

However, it tried way too fucking hard to make X-men First Class fit into the same world. It would have been much easier and opened so many new doors to just say, "Fuck it, X-men First Class is a reboot." But Singer just had to undo the shit that fucked up his precious X2. I can't give this movie too high or too low a score in that respect. Right now, I'll give it a 5 out of 10 because while it still sucked when it came to details, it did succeed in what it was supposed to do. Now we can all just cheer that X3, Wolverine Origins, and The Wolverine officially didn't happen. Then we can look forward to Singer fucking up this new timeline. For that, I'm going to need way more whiskey when I go into the theaters to see X-men: Apocalypse. Nuff said!

X-men: Days of Futures Past - Decoding Whether It Will Suck

I've avoided talking about the upcoming X-men: Days of Futures Past movie on this blog and for good reason. Every time I start talking about the X-men movies, I get so worked up I need three shots of heroin just to keep the veins in my neck from exploding. I've made no secret of my sentiment towards the X-men movies. I think they all suck more balls than Jenna Jameson in her prime. But I know I can't ignore this shit. It's going to give off a shitty stench no matter what I say or don't say. But I wouldn't be much of an X-men fan and this wouldn't be much of a blog if I didn't at least mention this movie. And at the request of someone from The Hollywood Reporter, I think I have something I can share with my wonderful readers that doesn't involve a shot of heroin.

Longtime X-Men fans have bemoaned the fact that this summer’s X-Men: Days of Future Past sends Wolverine back in time to prevent a particularly dystopian future instead of Kitty Pryde, who served that role in the original comic version of the story. But what if there’s more going on than people suspected?

Read More At The Following Link:

'X-Men: Days of Future Past': Decoding CinemaCon's Time-Traveling Clip (Analysis)

X-men Supreme Issue 91: Starcrossed Part 1 is LIVE!

It's a brand new year for the X-men Supreme fanfiction series. It also happens to be X-men Supreme's 5th anniversary. It seems so longer than it really is, but I began X-men Supreme back in 2010 and I had been planning it for much longer than that. So five years is a pretty big deal considering how much this fanfiction series has evolved in that time. And I have every intention of continuing that evolution into 2014. It's a big year for X-men as a whole. Another movie is set for release, X-men: Days of Futures Past. And Marvel Comics has some big plans on the horizon for the X-men with stories such as No More Humans and the Trial of Jean Grey. I have big plans as well for the X-men Supreme fanfiction series and many of them will stem from this new arc, Starcrossed.

I already revealed in the preview last week that Starcrossed will force Professor Charles Xavier and his X-men to confront his sickly condition. But that's not all the X-men will have to confront. The aftermath of the Cambrian is still being felt by many. The Brotherhood of Mutants did their best to contain that damage by trying to destroy the alien ship that had been buried under Genosha for centuries. However, the ship had other ideas. It became active again, signaling the Shi'ar that the bloodline they thought they had destroyed was still alive. It has both Wanda Maximoff, the de-facto ruler of Genosha, and General Grimshaw of the MSA very concerned. But they have no idea what their in for and they may never know.

It's going to be the X-men that will have to confront this alien threat. They've already done it before in X-men Supreme Issue 46: Paradise Mystery. Now they'll have to take on a much more menacing alien threat. And for reasons that aren't quite clear, Lilandra Neramani, Charles Xavier's love interest, is at the center of it all. Now Xavier will have to both confront his mortality and save the woman he loves, hoping his X-men will help him despite having lied to them. Emotions will be running high in this arc and it will have some important developments for the X-men Supreme fanfiction series as a whole. So this arc is a great jumping on point and one that I hope to be memorable for all the right reasons. And it starts today!

X-men Supreme Issue 91: Starcrossed Part 1

With a new year upon us, I want to keep making the X-men Supreme fanfiction series as awesome as it can possibly be. To do that, it's very important that I continue to increase support for this fanfiction series. X-men Supreme is only going to keep growing and I want my audience to grow with it. I make no money off this fanfiction series and I dedicate a lot of time and effort to make it awesome. So it's very important that I get feedback from my readers. So please take the time to post a review in the comments section of the issue or contact me directly. I'm always willing to chat! Thanks again to all those who have supported X-men Supreme over these last five years and I hope it continues in 2014. Until next time, take care and best wishes! Excelsior!

Jack

Xtreme X-men #12 - Universe-Crumbling Awesome

Every so often you find yourself in a situation where a long list of shitty circumstances converge right on your asshole and make you wish you were dead, gay, or comatose. We've all had bad days, but there are bad days when you get stuck in traffic on your way to work and the kinds of days where an ex-girlfriend, an IRS agent, and a New York City judge kick in your door at six in the morning while hung over. Comic book characters have these days all the time. Hell, they're probably akin to our typical Monday. But some just have a special kind of suck that makes you wonder whether they have a good therapist or an even better pot dealer.

Dazzler just began having one of those days at the end of Xtreme X-men #11. Up to that point, things had been going pretty damn well for her. She proved herself a capable leader of her team, she took down what she believed to be the final evil Charles Xavier, and she got to hook up with a black Cyclops. So she got to kill a Nazi and piss off the KKK in the same day. Hell, that's as good as they come for a pretty blond these days. But just when it seemed like this journey was over for her, the Xavier-in-a-Jar that had been guiding her through this mission from the beginning decided to say, "Fuck it! You're all screwed!" It made for a somewhat random and incoherent ending. However, it set the stage for the final stage of Greg Pak's Xtreme X-men. It's bittersweet in that a series that turned Dazzler from just another pretty blond into a kick-ass team leader is nearing its end, but to even get to the end she's gotta have one last shitty day.

This shitty day begins in Xtreme X-men #12 with the team's arrival at another exotic location. This time they end up in an Ancient Egyptian setting. But it's not the Disney's Aladdin type setting. This shit involves slaves and back-breaking labor, basically the kind of shit that Walt Disney didn't want to show kids until they were able to become underpaid interns. Now right off the bad we're not told how they got to this point. We know Xavier-in-a-Jar linked up with Nazi Xavier and Wizard Xavier in the last issue, but we don't know why they ended up in Egypt. I'm guessing the only way they felt their egos could be sufficiently supported is with pyramids and big ass statues. It's not the first time we haven't been told how Dazzler's team showed up in a new world, but since they're already in the midst of a pretend-to-be-captured-as-slaves plan to get them close to the evil Xaviers it kind of feels jarring.

However, the plot quickly settles as we find out that the evil Xavier's are already making their mark by having slaves carve their bald heads into monuments. I assume they're planning on statues depicting their undersized dicks too, but right now the priority is their ego and tapping into a rift in the space-time continuum. I'm assuming the statues of their dicks are a close third, but that rift is poised to be their way of giving the finger to the multi-verse. As evil Xaviers, they're never content to just have an army of slaves and monuments to their dicks. They need to fuck over multiple universes. All I can say to that is their dicks must be smaller than I thought.

After watching the evil Xavier's throw some slaves into the rift and compliment one another on how big their dicks are, Dazzler and her teams maintain their cover. They allow the Xaviers to keep jerking each other off while they formulate a plan. Later that night, Dazzler muses on how she fucked up by assuming they had killed 10 evil Xaviers when they only killed 9. While she may fail math and be subjected to any number of dumb blond jokes, she is committed to making it right and her team is committed to standing by her. It shows that she really has won over this group of dimensionally displaced X-men and not because she has a great rack either.

The novelty should have worn off by now, but I can't help but take note of it every time I see it. Dazzler really has come a long way as a character since this series started. She's gone from that other cute blond not named Emma Frost to a capable leader that can fight an army of evil Charles Xaviers and still make you want to smell her panties. She's no Lara Croft or Black Widow. She's her own leader and if given the choice between following her or Cyclops, I would definitely follow her and not just because Emma Frost might castrate me for staring at her rack too much. Dazzler really has become something special and I hope that continues after the end of this series.

The next morning, the team puts Dazzler's plan into motion. It's pretty basic, boiling down to causing a slave riot and pissing off the evil Xaviers as much as possible. It really doesn't take much convincing to inspire all the slaves to rise up against their bald, baby-dick oppressors. And in the process of causing such a commotion, they give Dazzler plenty of noise to work with. Given the growth in her leadership skills, it's easy to forget that she has some pretty potent powers as well in turning noise to energy. In the desert, there are not boom boxes with Pandora radio. So they have to create their noise and it works almost as well as dubstep.

Armed with all this noise, Dazzler attacks the evil Xaviers near their Sphinx statue where the rift in the universe is growing. Evil Wizard Xavier and Nazi Xavier are unimpressed and are still probably looking forward to how big the statue of their dicks are going to be. But during the attack, Dazzler also manages to get Xavier-in-a-Jar away from them. This then allows Hercules to do to these two evil Xaviers what every gay man in the world wishes they could do to the Westboro Baptist Church and bury them under a pile of rubble.

It's not the most epic battle, especially considering how much it took to take these two evil Xavier's down in the previous issues. You could say that Dazzler has just become so proficient at hunting down evil Xaviers that it's like being adopted by Angelina Jolie at this point. It just isn't all that shocking. But in terms of epic scale, this battle is somewhat lacking even if it is still satisfying to see Hercules bury the evil Xaviers.

Even if the battle isn't all that epic, it certainly doesn't end the threat of the evil Xaviers. Xavier-in-a-Jar informs Dazzler that they had already tapped a good chunk of that power from the rift and they're as unstoppable as the IRS at Wesley Snipe's front door. In order to keep the battle semi-fair, Dazzler and black Cyclops try to use their powers to close the rift. I don't know the physics of how that shit works, but given this is a series that involves hopping across universes with a floating head I'm pretty sure I can keep using my old high school physics textbook to roll joints.

But the two evil Xaviers aren't keen on letting someone fuck up their power source. Not when they're this close to finally getting a statue proclaiming how big their dicks are. After digging themselves out of the pile of rubble Hercules buried them under, they blast Dazzler and black Cyclops away from the rift and prepare to absorb more power. They seem poised to improve their evil wizard and Nazi abilities to cosmic proportions. But like using the pages of your physics books to roll joints, physics ends up screwing them over when they're tested on it.

For reasons that would probably still get any physics student a failing grade, the rift in the continuum decides it doesn't like evil wizards or Nazis and incinerates them. It's a rather inglorious way for these assholes to go, but since there have already been a couple comics that shows these two failing in epic fashion it's not too disappointing to see them fall in such an unglamorous way. And with two more evil Xaviers dead, that means this shit is finally over, right? Well if you read the last issue, you know what that sort of attitude will get you. And unlike last issue, Dazzler doesn't even get a chance to hook up with a black man.

For more reasons that aren't explained, the rift gets pissed off and starts sucking in everything like a Kardashian back stage at the NBA All-Star game. It sucks in all the slaves and innocent people that Dazzler and her team were trying to liberate. They try in vain to save them, but Xavier-in-a-Jar has to be a dick again and just teleports them to another part of the dimensional rift. It leaves them trapped while all those innocent people are poised to suffer at the hands of whatever power was trying to get through. We don't find out what it is. We only find out that it ties into the X-Terminators event. It's not a twist like the end of the previous issue, but it sets the stage for a big event and that's just as awesome!

Remember what I said about Dazzler having to have one last shitty day? Well, I should have added one little caveat. Shitty days often come in bunches so even if you're the last leg of a mission, you can't expect any shit storm to end in just one day. It's like the heavens get constipated and have to dump their load at some point. You just gotta be ready for it and after reading this issue, I get the sense that Dazzler and her team weren't ready in the slightest. That's not necessarily a bad thing because it ended up putting them in a position to play a major role in X-Terminator. It also helped finish what they only thought they finished in the previous issue. They killed more evil Xaviers, but it would be too easy for them to just go back and have Dazzler swap more spit with black Cyclops.

Xtreme X-men #12 was solid in that it continued the theme of taking Dazzler's team to exotic locations. Maybe being slaves in Ancient Egypt isn't the most exotic place they could have gone, especially considering how they visited the old West and encountered a My Little Pony Charles Xavier at one point. But it seemed fitting when you consider a Nazi and an evil wizard are involved. Hell, it might end up being the plot of the next Indiana Jones movie if Spielberg and George Lucas directed it while on crack. However, the action was still somewhat lacking and the epic feeling that we've seen with plenty of other Xtreme X-men battles just wasn't there. It was like only watching the third quarter of a football game. The most exciting possibilities were somewhat lost in between.

With Xtreme X-men ending and Greg Pak moving on to write Batman/Superman for DC Comics, I understand that the next few issues will be as precious as Natalie Portman's breast milk. It hasn't been an easy journey for Dazzler, going from just another big-boobed blond in a comic book to being a big-boob blond that can kick ass and lead an army of slaves against an evil wizard and a Nazi. Greg Pak has flexed that twisted imagination of his throughout this journey of hers and on behalf of everyone who has ever taken a hallucinogen, I thank him for it. But this issue still left me wanting more. I know it's going to be resolved during X-Terminators, but at the same time I weep at the realization I may not read another X-men comic where a hot blond kills a Nazi for a long time. I give Xtreme X-men #12 a 3 out of 5. I guess with a name like Xtreme, this series can only go out as part of a crossover event. It doesn't involve a Nazi, but it does involve more alternate universe mischief and a version of Jean Grey that hasn't been laid in a while. In that sense, I have high hopes for the end of Xtreme X-men and the future of the X-books! Nuff said!

Xtreme X-men #9 - Dazzler vs. Zombie Killer Dazzler

I used to know a guy whose sole mission in life was to try and upstage me at every possible turn. If I drank six beers, he tried to drink seven. If I did three lines of blow, he tried to do four. If I dated a girl and broke up with her after she found out I used her credit card to buy $800 in porn, then he tried to bang his girlfriend's sister and mother simultaneously. Needless to say, he pissed me off to no end. Granted, it all worked out. One time he thought I chugged a gallon of gasoline that was just wine smuggled in a gas tank. I don't know if they ever found a liver doner, but I think he learned his lesson. But the point of the story is that sometimes you're going to have to deal with assholes trying to upstage you and you can't always rely on their stupidity or their inability to discern wine from gasoline.

In the pages of Xtreme X-men, Dazzler has recently encountered some competition for her leadership position in her team of dimensionally displaced X-men. If she had balls, they would already be partially busted because she only recently proved her ability to lead the team when she, Wolverine, and Sage visited Kid Nightcrawler's universe and rescued him from killer robots and still had time to make a pit stop in 616 to get the blessing of Cyclops (although his blessing is worth about as much as Vanilla Ice's street cred these days). Yet when she returned to the Xavier-in-a-Jar, she found out he already replaced her with another more badass Dazzler that came from a universe where she led her own X-Force team against zombie hoards for a living. You can beat all the killer robots you want and get all the blessings from Cyclops you want, but you just can't beat zombie killers.

In Xtreme X-men #8, Greg Pak delivered yet another fucked up incarnation of Charles Xavier that was akin to an episode of My Little Pony on a bad acid trip. Both Dazzler teams were able to beat him, but Zombie Killer Dazzler understands that having two hot blondes on the same team just doesn't work in a non-porno situation. Xavier-in-a-Jar made up his mind. He wants the Zombie Killer Dazzler. And to prove it, the two fought each other in what should have been a bra and panties match in mud. But I guess Pak ran out of time and just had Zombie Killer Dazzler apparently kill her. I say that with the least urgent tone possible because it's painfully obvious that she's not dead. She's a pretty blond in a major comic book. Unlike slasher movies, they don't die. Marvel knows they need all the hot blonds for their fans to masturbate to as possible. So it's a given she'll survive, but it's not a given how she'll take on her zombie killing counterpart.

But before Dazzler can begin to contemplate how she’ll become more Paris Hilton and less Nichole Richie, we’re first introduced to the latest threat her team. The first pages of Xtreme X-men #9 introduce yet another douche-bag version of Charles Xavier that the multi-verse can do without. While Greg Pak has introduced many such Xaviers over the course of this series, he’s usually done a good job of mixing it up a little. We’ve had old West evil Xavier, we’ve had an Asgardian manipulating wannabe Xavier, and even a My Little Pony Xavier (that turned out to be a demon, but that’s besides the point). Pak knows how to mix this shit up is what I’m saying. So when the Xavier in this issue turns out to be your standard evil wizard in a setting that could be the backdrop for every major Lord of the Rings ripoff, it’s a little bland. It’s basically as standard an evil Xavier as you can get. That just makes the main antagonist in this comic less imposing if you're reading the comic sober.

The non-zombie killing Dazzler wakes up in this world, having been seriously wounded at the end of the last issue when her zombie killing counterpart fucking stabbed her. She has a nasty bandage over her chest, yet for some reason doesn’t seem all that woozy. I know there are some wounds that the tough and the ballsy shake off. Football players shake off concussions, boxers shake off broken jaws, and Chuck Norris shakes off gunshot wounds. But Dazzler woke up from being stabbed in the just as if it were a mild hangover. Having had my share of hangovers, I can say definitively that even the toughest don’t look that chipper even if they wake up in Megan Fox’s bath tub.

This somewhat contrived wake-up call forces Dazzler to catch up with the shit that’s going on around her. Apparently, the rest of her team is in the middle of a Lord of the Rings style battle. But instead of Orc, they’re fighting evil Beasts. Given what a monumental douche Beast has been in the comics lately, that’s a pretty terrifying threat. But zombie killer Dazzler, who apparently doesn’t give half a nanogram of shit about stabbing her counterpart, is leading them into battle. She doesn’t have much strategy. She’s just telling her team that there are monsters in front of them so killing them must somehow solve the problem. For some reason, Dazzler has a problem with that. And for a reason that’s even more fucked up, she doesn’t seem to care about the stab wound in her chest. It’s never even explained how serious the wound is. I’m all for X-men looking badass, but a fucking stab wound is not something that should be glossed over.

Regardless of how wounded she is, Dazzler is not about to let some bitch that just stabbed her take over her team and lead them with the ability of a relapsed drunk. She confronts her counterpart, but again the whole stabbing thing is brushed aside. I assume she was about to slowly explain to her why just running into an army of angry Beasts is a shitty battle tactic, but I guess she figured she can’t rationalize a situation she can’t stab. So with that in mind, Dazzler forcibly takes some of her dignity back by using her powers to effectively nuke the army in front of her. It’s the kind of dazzling display that few attractive blonds not named Lady Gaga can match. And for a girl who was recently stabbed, it’s pretty impressive and actually gets her team to stop following the crazy bitch that doesn’t look before crossing the street and listen to her. It’s not just badass, but it demonstrates that Dazzler is taking this whole leadership shit pretty seriously and isn’t going to let some stab-happy counterpart take that away from her.

Having proven her capabilities in the most blinding way possible, she gathers the team and some of the natives who happen to look like mini-Nightcrawlers. I guess with him being dead and/or an evil, traitorous prick Marvel has to make entire races of rip-offs to fill the void. But they’re actually pretty useful in that they provide Dazzler with a layout of the stronghold of the Witch King, aka the Evil Sauron-style Xavier. Armed with this information, she formulates a plan that involves Wolverine and Hercules infiltrating the castle from one end while attacking from another. It’s not as glorious as charging head-first into the front end of his army, but it has a better chance of actually doing more than just laughing his ass off at how stupid their tactics are.

Pak also uses this little planning phase to play up the dynamic between Wolverine and Hercules. In case your priest, imam, or Fox News anchor didn’t bitch about it recently, this version of Wolverine is gay and he’s swapping man meat with Hercules. And part of Dazzler’s plan involve them dressing up as Orcs, but in a way that would be more fitting in a gay pride parade than a Lord of the Rings style battle. I’m not saying that’s wrong. Hell, I think it’s awesome that Pak is making it clear that these two are hot for each other and are willing to dress up in ways that would make Pat Robertson’s head explode. And anything that disgusts Pat Robertson and men like him is awesome in my book!

So without anyone stabbing anybody this time, the plan is put into action. It’s not as epic a battle as it could have been. It actually feels a little rushed. But the point of the battle is to show that there are more efficient ways to take down an evil Xavier that don’t involve trying to go through his armies of monstrous Beasts. And much to the chagrin of the zombie killer Dazzler, it actually works. Wolverine and Hercules are able to draw the attention of Wizard Xavier’s armies away with their overwhelming strength and powerful man-love that puts anything Stephanie Meyer ever wrote to shame. This leaves Wizard Xavier’s stronghold more exposed than Pamela Anderson’s tits in bikini, thus Dazzler, Black Cyclops, Nightcrawler, and zombie killer Dazzler to slip inside. It’s not the most elaborate strategy in the history of warfare, but it works. They also blow up the bridge in the process because what’s a little strategy without a little “fuck you” thrown into the mix?

While this strategy allows Dazzler and her team to get around Wizard Xavier’s armies, the process of actually kicking his ass is a lot more difficult. Apparently, Dazzler didn’t have any strategy for that. But since she’s so new at this whole leadership thing, I’m willing to cut her some slack. The same can’t be said for Wizard Xavier, who exercises a mix of Harry Potter and Darth Vadar in how he takes on Dazzler and her team. He’s not gentle, he’s not merciful, and he really doesn’t try to do anything you wouldn’t expect a completely unapologetic douche-bag to do. It’s as overly basic as it sounds, which is somewhat disappointing given how Greg Pak has thrown in plenty of twists in the past with evil Xaviers. This is no pony Xavier like in the last arc, not by a long shot. So if you were hoping to be shocked again, stop holding your breath. Unless you’re doing a bong hit, that shit isn’t healthy.

It’s looking pretty bad for Dazzler, but once again her zombie killing counterpart just can’t stand to be upstaged. She already saw how her charge-the-massive-army-of-monsters tactics was proven to be fucking stupid. She needs to redeem herself somehow and what better way than to use the same tactic her counterpart used earlier and push her powers to eye-melting limits. Zombie killer Dazzler effectively ditches any notion of self-preservation and attacks Wizard Xavier with the kind of blinding force you won’t see outside a fireworks show on an LSD trip. She ends up pushing herself so far that she not only kills Wizard Xavier. She effectively burns out her own body until she’s nothing more than a figure of light that eventually fades.

This is yet another gaping plot hole that isn’t really explained. So if Dazzler pushes her powers that hard, she just turns into a walking hologram that eventually fades out? When the fuck did that become a potential problem for her? It makes sense on some levels, but not enough to prevent sober minds from asking WTF? Drunk minds may only be concerned with there being one less hot blond, but no matter how intoxicated a reader might be it is still a moment that should leave plenty of confusion.

Even if you are more confused by zombie killing Dazzler’s little display than a transvestite in a public restroom, it still makes for a powerful moment. This issue and the previous issue introduced some heavy competition for Dazzler’s leadership and now it’s safe to say that she’s channeled her inner Charlie Sheen and come out a winner. Her zombie killing counterpart isn’t even a sore loser either. She expresses confidence that she’ll do whatever crazy shit she needs to do in order to take down the rest of the evil Charles Xaviers. She even leaves Dazzler with her more badass uniform, which she greatly accepts. It doesn’t show quite as much cleavage, but the two gay men in the group voice no complaints about her fashion sense so it must be okay.

Anyone who puts his or her socks on one at a time admits on some level that it feels pretty damn good to upstage someone who was a complete asshole to you. There are few greater dick moves than just stabbing someone in the chest and not even apologizing for it. Yet for reasons that only Jesus Christ himself would understand, Dazzler didn’t make a big deal of it in this issue. Rather than bitch and moan about how begin stabbed hurts, she spent the bulk of this comic proving that she was a better leader and better equipped to take down evil Xaviers. And she fucking proved it in a way that would shrivel the scrotum of nearly every self-righteous douche-bag who ever owned a Prius or listened to Rush Limbaugh.

This has been the challenge of Xtreme X-men since it began. Pretty much every arc revolves around Dazzler and her team hunting down evil Charles Xaviers. Shit like that can get old pretty fast. X-men fans have been used to Charles Xavier being a douche since Joss Whedon’s Astonishing X-men run. So Greg Pak has to inject more elements into these stories to make them interesting. And damn it, he succeeds. Although this issue was a bit overly basic at times and didn’t really throw in any huge twists like some of the previous arcs, it took events from a previous story and added a new element to the story. Dazzler only recently earned her role as leader of the team. Now she’s solidified it in a way that nobody who enjoys eating solid food or not being blind will ever dare question.

This issue was solid, but it was a bit more condensed than previous issues and in some instances that proved detrimental. It glossed over that little fact about Alison being stabbed in the previous issue and being more than capable of winning a battle against an army of Beasts. It also didn’t really develop the new black Cyclops all that much, nor did it explain clearly what happened with X-Force Dazzler when she faded. There were one too many blanks to fill in. It would have helped to have some narration at some points and dialog that was a bit more detailed, but in the end the story still succeeded in its primary goal to bitch slap all doubts about Dazzler’s leadership.

I liken the gaps in this issue to those nasty potholes on the highway. You can’t avoid them and they’re annoying as hell, but unless you’re a whiney little bitch you don’t complain about them. You just acknowledge them and keep driving until you reach the bar and/or strip club. This issue got readers to said bar and/or strip club, albeit in a less-than-smooth ride. Greg Pak continues to find ways to make a series centered around killing evil Charles Xaviers compelling and finds yet another way to make an attractive blonde badass in a way that you can still masturbate to. I give Xtreme X-men #9 a 3.5 out of 5. Yes, it has gaps. But it also has goblins, wizards, muscular gay men, demons, beasts, and two hot blonds trying to upstage one another. If that shit isn’t enough for you, then you’re an asshole or a Mormon. Nuff said!

Xtreme X-men #7 - Robot Apocalyptic Awesome

We all have fond memories of our homes or where we come from, but later on in life they're never as awesome as we recall. For instance, there was this one amazing bar less than five blocks from where I grew up. It was a shitty, hole-in-the-wall type bar that looked like a motel where only crack heads would sleep if they couldn't blow enough guys for rent money. But the booze was always fresh, the women were always friendly (after a few drinks), and they didn't play any shitty country music. Years later, that bar became a fucking Starbucks and the only thing that bar reminds me of now is how much I hate hipsters.

I imagine Kid Nightcrawler understands where I'm coming from. In the previous issue of Xtreme X-men, he ditched Dazzler and Wolverine when he saw what he thought were his parents from his world. So while Dazzler and Wolverine had to leave Xavier-in-a-Jar behind with hungry dinosaurs to go after him, Kid Nightcrawler ventured into his world in hopes of finding his parents. Unfortunately, he found out that his world had since gone the ways of the Terminator movies. Machines, tired of being used as databases for cat photos and porn, rose up and wiped out most of humanity. So when Kid Nightcrawler showed up, he was most definitely saddened and that was before they threw his ass in a jail cell. It makes me wonder if this universe had its own version of Cyberdyne or a very evil Steve Jobs.

But beyond the childhood trauma, Xtreme X-men has been throwing in a few more bonus features. When it started out, the team was a bit larger in that it had an alternate Emma Frost on the team. She since decided to stick around in a world where the X-men were Asgardian gods and now she looks like the smart one because this new world of killer robots make pissed off X-gods seem tame. But in the previous issue, Greg Pak tapped into some classic Xtreme X-men elements when he brought Sage into the mix. She's been MIA in the X-books for nearly a decade, but now she back as an ambassador for SWORD. It's the perfect job for her. She's part computer and if Apple made an irobot, Sage would be first in line to fuck it. For a cast that's been low on numbers lately, it's a great way to give Xtreme a new flavor of awesome.

Xtreme X-men #7 picks up with Kid Nightcrawler's traumatic situation. He's already finding out what it feels like to be a porn star in Charlie Sheen's hotel room, trapped in a cell and unable to use his abilities to free himself. He's stuck with in inhibitor collar to keep him from teleporting and the robots that now run this world are looking at him the same way a kid looks at retarded squirrel. It shows that this universe has a really shitty version of Cyberdyne because Kid Nightcrawler is able to make contact with his parents, who claim they helped build these robots and were able to avoid them. So despite the trauma, he still has some hope. He may just end up slightly worse off than Angus T. Jones from Two and a Half Men.

Lucky for Kid Nightcrawler, the trauma isn't drawn out over the course of 10 seasons, a very public meltdown, and Ashton Kutcher. Dazzler and Wolverine break through and free him from his cell, fighting through a world run by killer robots in the process. While Kid Nightcrawler is intent on finding his parents, Dazzler and Wolverine are intent on not having their flesh used as robot lubricant. The battle isn't as exciting as you would expect it to be. It's more Terminator 3 and less Terminator 4, unfortunately. It feels a bit rushed despite there being some amazing potential for X-men vs. Killer Robot action. Now some at Marvel may think that shit has been more overdone than deep fried turkey, but some shit just never get old and X-men fighting killer robots is one of them.

While we don't get to see too many X-men vs. killer robot battles, we do get to see Sage enter the picture once more and rescue Dazzler, Wolverine, and Kid Nightcrawler. She was the big wild card in the previous issue that overjoyed the many fans that were wondering, "What the fuck happened to Sage and how much longer will we have to wait to see her in skin tight outfits again?!" Well the wait ended in the last issue and in this issue, their paths finally cross. It's not as emotional a reunion as one might hope, but I guess you can only squeeze in so much melodrama when there are killer robots attacking. Again, the action scenes here are pretty underwhelming and the dialog is pretty light. We don't even get any thought bubbles to indicate what Alison was thinking. We can only assume it's something like, "Where the fuck has she been and where can I get a pair of those awesome glasses!"

This has been somewhat of an issue since Xtreme X-men began, but it was never too noticeable until now. Greg Pak is great when it comes to setting up a situation and putting all the right elements into the story. It's the added depth that is often missing. That depth was there during the Exhaulted arc in Astonishing X-men and some of it was present in the first few issues, but for the past few issues that depth has been lacking. We don't get much feel for emotions or thoughts in these characters. I get that Pak is trying to have their actions do most of the thinking, but that shit only goes so far even with killer robots.

After a short lived reunion, Sage calmly explains to Dazzler that they're dealing with some rather fragile issues in robot diplomacy. As we learned in the previous issue, Sage is trying to uphold a treaty between the robots and SWORD. This treaty has allowed a whole new generation of robots to build themselves in a world where they don't have to slaughter mutants or cater to perverse Japanese sex fetishes. It seems outrageous for the X-men, who have made a name for themselves destroying giant robots. But Sage makes it clear that robots aren't just for smashing in this universe. They need to be a bit more tactful and that involves cooperating with the robot overlords, which in this universe happens to be a version of Danger. I suppose one of those few multi-universe constants is that whoever has the boobs has the power.

But these robots weren't just content with tormenting Kid Nightcrawler with images of his parents. After he finds out where the robot overlords are holding up, he teleports away from the team just like he did when he first ended up in this place. You would think he had learned his lesson, but then again he is a teenager. If they don't act impulsive, then they're probably overdosing on Ritalin. He avoids more killer robots before he finds what he thinks are his parents. However, he quickly learns they're just holograms. His parents were never there in the first place and those images he saw was just the killer robots fucking with him. It's a sad moment and Pak does a great job of capturing the emotion here. I guess he figures he's overdone the action with X-men gods and old west cliches so the series needs some balance. He's not wrong either because it's a moment that really helps humanize a character that is dead and/or evil in every other X-book.

And it gets even worse, as if robots fucking with Kid Nightcrawler's emotions isn't bad enough. It turns out that Kid Nightcrawler's parents aren't just dead. They were fucking dissected. Or vivisected as Danger put it. I'm not sure what that means. it sounds like a very nasty procedure a guy has done on his urethra. But it turns out that Kid Nightcrawler's parents helped build these robots and they thought it logical to dissect their creators to learn more about them. That and it gave them the opportunity to fuck with him. I'm not sure if that's logic or just a program that requires them to be douche-bags, but it's pretty fucking twisted.

Yet it's twisted in a way that's both awesome and compelling. Greg Pak knows how to torment his characters. He proved that on a regular basis during his Hulk run. This definitely takes it to another level. On some levels, it is shock value on the same level as the Red Skull ripping out the brain of a dead Charles Xavier. But this moment doesn't make you want to run to the toilet and do your best Mary Kate Olson impersonation. You actually feel for Kid Nightcrawler and any comic that can make a drunk like me feel is awesome in its own right.

After laying all this on Kid Nightcrawler, the robots decide they haven't been cruel enough. So they say they aren't going to kill Kid Nightcrawler after already having killed his family and his world. They're going to let him live and let the X-men go so he could live out the rest of his days in torment as punishment for all the disgusting things humans have done to robots. It's so cruel that it's not too surprising that after they leave Kid Nightcrawler hijacks Sage's ship and rains missiles down on his former home city. I guess that's one way to turn trauma into something awesome. It creates a pretty explosive reign of destruction all over a city now run by hippie robots. But since Disney probably won't allow Marvel to get away with that kind of slaughter, we find out all those "innocent" robots had backups and it's not going to hurt them anymore than having your cable go out for a few minutes. It may not hurt them, but it makes for another emotional moment for Kid Nightcrawler that really helps bring the comic full circle.

But all these killer robots and tormenting Kid Nightcrawler hasn't made the mission by the Xavier-in-a-Jar any less pressing. In the previous issue, Dazzler and Wolverine ditched Xavier-in-a-Jar to find Kid Nightcrawler. They left him in a world full of dinosaurs, cave men, and everything else that makes creationists sick to their stomachs. But he didn't just lay around and wait for a T-Rex to shit him out. He apparently met up with some other Marvel alternate reality characters such as Hercules, Dazzler, and what appears to be a black Cyclops. It's pretty random and somewhat distracts from the emotional undertones of the issue. But it promises to make for a rather awkward reunion, especially with Wolverine since we know he's got a thing for Hercules and his demigod caliber ass.

I look at what happened to Kid Nightcrawler in this issue in the same way I look at what fame has done to every child star not named Neil Patrick Harris. They don't just have fucked up childhoods. They have their childhoods desecrated by forces beyond their control, be they killer robots or overbearing parents. Most of the time, the overbearing parents (and the lawyers they hire) impart far more trauma on a child. But in this issue, the robots proved nearly as deadly as any lawyer and Kid Nightcrawler didn't exactly react to it in a mature manner. It was a very emotional moment for a character that just found out his world had been decimated. It's the kind of emotion that Greg Pak hasn't really explored in Xtreme X-men to date, but he really did a great job of capturing here and this is what makes the issue awesome.

While I really like the emotional turn Greg Pak has taken, this arc does seem to veer a bit far off course from the original plot of the previous arcs. The end helped ensure that the readers wouldn't totally forget that the mission remains helping Xavier-in-a-Jar hunt down other evil Xaviers. But the emergence of a new Dazzler and a Hercules and Black Cyclops are a bit random. In addition, not much was explained about how Sage got caught up in this world. Granted, it makes perfect sense that she would be heavily involved in a world where robots rule the world. But there was never an explanation of how she got there and what she's been up to if she is the 616 Sage, which isn't clear.

This lack of clarity and coherence isn't helped by some weak dialog at times. But what this issue lacked in style, it made up for with substance. The emotional journey of Kid Nightcrawler and the heart-wrenching scenes at the end were what made this issue worth reading. It adds a more personal touch to a universe-hopping story with a hot blond and a gay Wolverine. It shows that while Xtreme X-men can be as diverse as ten acid trips, it can still have the same heart that all X-books have. For this reason, I give Xtreme X-men #7 a 3.5 out of 5. Now we have another Dazzler and Gay Wolverine's man crush. I think Mr. Pak knows that there are slash fanfiction writers out there with semi-hard erections just itching to do a story about them! And I'm sure he has every intention of giving them plenty of material to work with. Nuff said!

Xtreme X-men #4 - Old West Awesome

I've never been a fan of old westerns. There are only so many times I pay attention to a story that involves to cowboys standing in a dirt road, ready to shoot each other, and not realizing how utterly retarded it is to be standing directly in front of one another. All I know about old westerns is that there's a good cowboy meant to represent all the virtues that the Christian Right has been trying to shove down our throats for three decades and a bad cowboy meant to be Charlie Sheen's distant ancestor. It's fun the first time, but like jerking off to the same porno it eventually fails to get your dick hard again. So when Xtreme X-men is poised to go from a world of X-men demigods to a world of John Wayne ripoffs, I wasn't exactly thrilled.

That said, I'm usually willing to give cliched themes a shot just like I'm usually willing to give that old porno I mentioned a shot at getting my dick hard again. Sometimes it work. Sometimes it doesn't and I have to spend the next two hours on youporn finding something that will get me off when the blow still hasn't worn off. But given the recent success of Xtreme X-men, I think Greg Pak has earned the trust of both my dick and my tastes in X-men comics. He's done something that's not entirely novel by taking a B-list character in Dazzler and sending her on a universe-hopping adventure where she rubs elbows with all sorts of alternate reality X-men. However, he does it in a way that's just fun and enjoyable. It's not some radically stupid idea like trying to make an entire story about the Phoenix Force that doesn't involve Jean Grey. Okay, bad example.

Thankfully, Greg Pak is both able and willing to move a story forward in a coherent way without resorting to ADHD medications. The previous issue ended with Dazzler's X-men revealing that the Xavier in the world of X-gods was actually a divinely inspired douche-bag in that he cast an epic mind-fuck that made the X-men into holy assholes and the world into an unholy toilet. It's yet another instance of Charles Xavier being a universal douche-bag in a multi-verse of possibilities. Is it at all possible Dazzler and co. will EVER find a universe where Xavier doesn't make the reader want Cyclops to go Dark Phoenix and end his shit? Okay, another bad example. But you get the idea.

Xtreme X-men #4 introduces us to a world where the X-men live in a bad John Wayne movie. It's the old west complete with dusty roads, drinking, gambling, and presumably plenty of prostitutes. And like the old west, there's plenty of lawless shit going on. And wouldn't you know it? This world's version of Charles Xavier is the overbloated source of it all. He apparently still has telepathic powers in this world and rather than using them to get free blowjobs from the prostitutes, he uses them to cheat at cards. That in and of itself is pretty inane until he uses those same powers to make everybody's brain leak out of their ears when someone calls him out. Some men just aren't satisfied with blow jobs and in almost every instance, they tend to be evil.

Flash forward in time a bit so that evil Xavier has plenty of time to mind-fuck an entire town and time period. It's nowhere nearly as impressive as mind fucking a bunch of demigods, but I guess we can't expect every version of Xavier to be that badass. Dazzler, Nightcrawler, Wolverine, and their pet Xavier in a jar arrive just long enough to channel their inner Clint Eastwood. They also have time to steal some clothes that just happen to fit perfectly because apparently the old west offered a better selection than your average modern Wal-Mart. And after rolling into town doing their best to not look like inter-dimensional time travelers, they begin their mission to hunt down this world's evil Xavier. But wouldn't you know it? The old west tends to attract a lot of assholes and the X-men just aren't inclined to ignore assholes.

This time it comes in the form of a familiar looking kid named Jamie with a familiar set of claws. He and his mother get harassed by an old west style version of the Brotherhood, complete with a version of Toad that easily gets his ass kicked. They don't give much reason for harassing the kid and his mother. But the mere fact he has claws and a bad temper is enough to rouse Wolverine's inner Hamlet and attack these old west knock-offs.

It's a battle that's a fuckton more exciting than your typical shootout. Dazzler makes dueling look sexy for the first time since John Wayne's death by turning her light-show into a mini-gun. It gives Wolverine plenty of time to beat the shit out of this world's version of Sabretooth, which never gets old no matter what universe he's in. They also pick up on a few ominous quips about there being big bad boss of sorts. And since they've yet to come across a universe where Xavier isn't a douche, it's a pretty safe assumption who it may be. But since this version of Wolverine also happens to have childhood issues, he insists on taking on the whole damn down while Dazzler and Nightcrawler get the boy and his mother to safety. It's badass, but pretty damn stupid.

After Dazzler and Nightcrawler get away, Wolverine ends up in the pokey for stirring up so much shit. While he's presumably waiting for a cake with a nail file, he finds out he's got a cell mate that doesn't look inclined to make him his bitch. His mate is actually Jamie's father. This in and of itself isn't too jarring until it gives Wolverine some frat party style flashbacks of his own father. It sounds cheesy, but it actually adds a bit of heart to the scene and the overall plot because to this point there hasn't been much room for melodrama in Xtreme X-men. It's just travel the multi-verse, beat up evil Xavier's, and find reasons to put Dazzler in a sexy costume. That's all well and good, but a story about a kid whose father got wrongfully locked up that also makes Wolverine seem like less of an unfeeling douche-bag also helps.

We learn that this guy made only one mistake that landed him in a prison cell with a festering wound for over a year. He had the balls to tell the big boss in town to go fuck himself. In the old west, that's like a woman going on an ice fishing trip with Scott Peterson. It's not going to end well. But unlike this desperate father, Wolverine is more inclined to bust out. And since he's got a special skeleton that makes him immune to telepaths, he's in a much better position to tell the boss to go fuck himself.

That's actually a problem because in the same way that the Xavier of every world they visit is an asshole, he also happens to be pretty cunning. While the man is pleading with Wolverine to send his son one final message, we finally get to meet this big boss and this time there's no big twist. It is Xavier and he's not looking to pretend he's a nice guy. He just gets his kicks by mind-fucking people. And since Wolverine's skeleton is preventing him from doing that, he needs to employ all the sick shit from every Human Centipede movie to get it out of him, presumably without having to ingest as much shit.

While shit is getting bloody at the big house, Dazzler and Nightcrawler are working on finding Wolverine and Jamie's father. Dazzler employs some fancy tricks that involve her dressing up as a hooker, which is only slightly less revealing than her being in that Slave Leia costume she wore in the previous arc. If the next world they visit doesn't have her in a thong, then it would just be inconsistent at this point. But however slutty her clothes, she manages to find Wolverine using some creative sound tricks. Unfortunately, Xavier and his buddies already had their fun. They're still able to find Jamie's father though, who was more than happy to get paroled. It leads to a nice, emotional reunion with his family. However, they still haven't had a chance to tell this world's Xavier to go fuck himself and they just can't have that.

Whatever horrific shit this world's Xavier did, it seemed to work. Because after Dazzler and Nightcrawler succeed in freeing Jamie's father, Xavier sends his mind-fucked goons after them. And this time that includes Wolverine. This marks the second time one of their universe-hopping buddies has turned on them. Emma Frost did it in the previous arc. Now Wolverine has done it here, albeit after some presumably extreme coercion. But it implies the beginning of a rather disturbing trend. Now Dazzler may have to look for the moment when Kid Nightcrawler turns on her. At least he doesn't have metal claws, daddy issues, and an evil Xavier pulling his strings.

Whereas the previous issue was awesome because of Greg Pak's ability to throw a shocking twist into the mix, this issue found an entirely different way to be awesome. Contrary to popular belief, people are still capable of getting teary-eyed when they read a touching tale about a man trying to save his son and a son trying to save his father. Those tears are all the more sweet when one of them has claws. Pak took a break from showing Dazzler's team fight against gods that like to wash their hands in the blood of the innocent to set up a story that's more grounded, but with mutants and old west prostitutes. There's a struggle here with a family in danger and it offers a compelling pull that gives this issue a solid impact.

That said, the impact is somewhat lessened by the lack of details. We get that the story of Jamie and his father tickles your warm and fuzzy side in a way that probably would require another bypass for Dick Cheney. What we don't get is what the rest of the team should do about it and how this fits into their larger mission. That seems to be a growing theme in this series. It's getting tough to recall or keep track of their mission. And when you smoke as much weed as I do, you're not going to forget or have the necessary motivation to go back and read the earlier issues. I get that it's hard to keep a series coherent in the same way it's hard to beat a drug test while stoned. But that's what separates the good from the awesome.

However, this issue is still sufficiently awesome to rekindle your love of John Wayne movies. There's action, drama, and prostitutes. That's a complete story in my book! However, the increasing lack of coherence in Xtreme X-men is a distressing trend. I certainly hope that Greg Pak is able to throw in a few more twists because as much fun as it is seeing a pretty blonde hop universes and make friends with alternate versions of her friends, it gets old. There are only so many times you can see an alternate Xavier mind-fuck people before it loses its impact. However, that impact is still there and that's why I give Xtreme X-men #4 a 4 out of 5. Now if you'll excuse me, this comic has given me a sudden craving for whiskey and a hooker. Nuff said!

Xtreme X-men #3 - Divinely Deceptive Awesome

We all like pleasant surprises and despite the unpleasant ones. To me, a pleasant surprise is like finding an extra bag of weed between my couch cushion or finding a whole bottle of vodka in the back of the freezer. But unpleasant surprises are less fickle. They are usually variations of a bad hangover. Sometimes it's as simple as a kick in the nuts from a hooker after you pay them for a quick hummer in a gas station bathroom. Other times it's as complex as an overhyped comic event falling flatter than Kristen Stewart's acting. I've practically run out of shit analogies for Avengers vs. X-men, but I try to take some comfort in that the X-books are a big, overbloated property that Marvel does anything and everything to exploit in order to suck out every last cent from consumers. It may get the Occupy Wall Street crowd's panties in several knots, but for fans like me it just means more opportunities for those pleasant surprises.

One X-book that has been largely unaffected by the shit tornado that is Avengers vs. X-men is Greg Pak's Xtreme X-men. This comic is a lot like that guy at a party who would just grab the prettiest drunk girl he could find, slip out the back, and say "So long you drunk dumb-asses!" before banging the girl in the back of a pickup truck. It's just as fun, but without noise and potential liver damage of the big events.

And as luck would have it, Xtreme X-men is a series based entirely around a pretty girl that isn't even drunk (okay, so nobody's perfect). Dazzler has been mixing it up in the Marvel multi-verse, rubbing elbows with alternate versions of Wolverine, Nightcrawler, and Emma Frost. They team up with a disembodied head of Charles Xavier on a universe-hopping adventure to keep the space time continuum from collapsing worse than the Libyan government. The last issue had Dazzler cross paths with a version of X-men that believe they're actual gods and act like divine assholes to prove it. It wasn't a terrible story, but it was no line of blow off a strippers tits. However, Greg Pak has been known to shine in unexpected ways before so I'm always willing to give him a chance, provided he doesn't do some crazy shit like send Rogue to a world of cat-people...okay, bad example.

Xtreme X-men #3 picks up shortly after Dazzler, Wolverine, and Kid Nightcrawler escape Storm and the X-gods wrath. In the last issue they made the mistake of not making them less bored so they decided to attack. It was a lopsided battle, but thankfully they got an assist from this world's version of Magneto and Xavier. Apparently in this universe, they're still BFF's and not in the slash fiction sort of way. They help Dazzler and her pals escape while creating a psychic illusion that has the X-gods take their divine douche-baggery on an unpopulated area. But Xavier and Magneto are keen to point out that these X-gods have killed millions in this world and have probably can't even get boners anymore without some mortal begging for mercy. Whether it's a guilt trip or a revelation, they make sure that Dazzler, Wolverine, and Kid Nightcrawler aren't comfortable letting that shit stand.

These alternate BFF versions of Xavier and Magneto take Dazzler and her team to an alternate version of utopia. However, it's about as utopian as downtown Detroit. It essentially contains the small minority of people who the X-gods haven't fucked over with their divine dicks. They're only about 5,000 strong and contain some familiar faces like Reed Richards and Hercules. It's somewhat tense because in this world Hercules is still part god, but he's only a demigod so he's cool. It's like being quarter Cherokee on a college admissions application. It's not much and it amounts to jack shit in the grand scheme of things, but it suffices. It also ensures that they have some muscle on their side to take on the X-gods.

But Dazzler and her team's arrival isn't all about forging inter-dimensional Facebook friends. Their presence has actually seriously fucked up a status quo that has already been gang banged more than Jenna Jameson. Not only that, they lost their Xavier head in a jar and they kind of need him back in order to ditch this Clash of the Titans knock-off X-men. But while using their own version of Cerebro to scan the X-god's Olympus-like palace, they learn that when Emmeline betrayed them in the previous issue she fucking meant it. She uses her own powers to give Xavier the psychic finger and that's a big fucking problem for reasons that go beyond Xavier getting schooled by a hot blonde. Now that the X-gods have a psychic, they can find Utopia and pretty much wipe their asses with if it they want. For that reason, Xavier says they have to kill all the telepaths working for the X-gods. Dazzler has a slight problem with that, but then he coyly points out that their pet Xavier in a jar tasked them with killing this universe's version of Xavier so that puts them in a pretty awkward position. It seems the least they could to maintain some form of dignity is to help out. Arriving in a universe to find out you're trying to kill the last hope for humanity to avoid being nothing more than a mild rectal itch to these gods kind of makes you obligated.

A night goes by and Xavier prepares to rally what's left of Utopia's army. They know they're basically akin to a bunch of grasshoppers trying to take down Mike Tyson wearing clown shoes so morale isn't exactly high. So Hercules gets Dazzler to do a little singing to inspire them. It's not much, but I think most people feel better about fighting to the death after hearing a hot chick sing. That seems to be another constant in most universes, comic book or otherwise.

But in addition to her singing, Dazzler also takes time to have a little chit-chat with Kid Nightcrawler. She actually tries to encourage him to sit out this battle because he's just a fucking kid. Throwing him into a battle against gods is a parenting tip right out of Michael Jackson's book. But Kid Nightcrawler isn't going to take that shit. He's going to partake in the battle regardless of how much it makes Dazzler's tummy hurt. It seems mundane, but it's actually a compelling scene in the sense that it shows Dazzler developing a kinship with these alternate reality X-men. To this point they really haven't developed much of a bond. Dazzler just got tossed in with them in the first issue. Now they're starting to get more friendly and that helps make for a more compelling narrative. It's like getting drunk with your best friend. It always beats getting drunk with a stranger that may try to pick a fight the moment you say something about their mother.

The next day, Xavier and Magneto march their army into battle. It looks to be a typical battle royal between a bunch of underdog mortals and gods who can't be bothered to listen to their bitching in between orgies. Storm and Thor don't seem too concerned, but as the army approaches the Xavier in a jar that they kept from Dazzler's team mentions some strange psychic interference. It may not sound like much and even if it means something, it's quickly lost once the battle begins. It's pretty standard at first. Kid Nightcrawler teleports them into the X-gods's domain while the main army harasses the rest of their godly army that is completely unlike what Pat Robertson probably imagines. Dazzler tries to get back at Storm for dressing her up like a stripper and trying to make her a Slave Leia of sorts. It seems like your typical battle where those underdog X-men reach deep down, channel their inner Braveheart, and overcome impossible odds. Well I'm sorry to say if you want that shit, you'll have to stick to Mighty Ducks movies because that ain't how this plays out.

Remember that point I made earlier about pleasant surprises? I'm asking because I don't remember it much either. You smoke enough weed and you forget the shit you write. It happens. But part of what goes into a pleasant surprise is a plot twist that's not so twisted that it gives the impression that the writer was stoned. It's a plot twist that's so unexpected yet so fitting that makes you feel like the hooker you paid to blow you didn't realize you paid her in monopoly money. I usually don't expect such twists from Greg Pak, but here he pulls something off that leaves me almost as shocked as the aforementioned hooker.

That minor warning from the Xavier in a jar that was glossed over earlier wasn't just a warning. It was a sign that something in this universe was more fucked up than your typical X-men as gods ordeal. It turns out that Storm, Thor, and the rest of her X-god buddies weren't just acting like douche-bags because it got their dicks hard. It turns out the Charles Xavier in this world was actually as big an asshole as they expected and then some. The Xavier in a jar reveals that this universe's Xavier drove the X-gods to being the assholes that took a giant shit on the world. And why would he do that? Well, he says it's because by having gods to oppose, he and Magneto could be the best they could be. Okay, that's about the second worse reason anybody ever went to war. At least George W. Bush only fucked over a country and not the world. Magneto didn't care for that reason either. He snapped this universe's Xavier's neck, which effectively frees the world from his douche-baggery while accomplishing the mission Dazzler's team set out to do. It's like a three-way at a whore house in that it accomplishes two goals at once.

Once this universe's asshole Xavier is dead, the X-gods begin the tedious process of unfucking the world. And in a shakeup that's expected in some ways and surprising than others, Emmeline decides to stay. Seeing as how she turned on Dazzler's team in the last issue, I figure it would be pretty damn hard to trust her at this point. Plus, the X-gods are nice enough to grant her a wish of not giving a damn anymore so she's pretty much bound to this universe. But even though she's Emma Frost from another world, she's still an Emma that gives only so many fucks. Not to leave on a sour note, Dazzler throws in a quick smooch on a hot guy before leaving with Wolverine, Kid Nightcrawler, and Xavier in a jar. They're not exactly leaving Las Vegas with a full bag of chips, but they're not leaving flat broke anyways. In terms of inter-dimensional hopping, I think this qualifies as a win.

This issue offered far more than I expected. From the get go, I've branded Xtreme X-men as a novelty that helps fill the void left by Exiles. It's a void not easily filled and one that I've done my best to fill with certain cocktails of alcohol and a few other exotic substances I dare not name less the fine folks at the DEA are X-men fans. But this issue goes beyond merely filling a void. This issue doesn't just carry the story forward. It throws in a remarkable twist that you won't find outside a Christopher Nolan movie, minus subtle anti-liberal propaganda. The issue began with one set of assumptions about Storm, Thor, and the rest of these X-men wannabe gods. Greg Pak effectively took those assumption, choked them with a piece of barb wire, and shot them with a 12-gauge shotgun in the head. Not only that, it tweaked the line-up in the story by having Emmeline stay while Dazzler continued her journey with Howlett and Kid Nightcrawler. That ensures the next arc won't follow the same formula. Now Dazzler and co. have to function without a hot blonde telepath on their side. Fuck if that isn't a challenge.

As great as the twist was, I still found Xavier's little justification for his deception pretty weak. And it wouldn't be the first time a version of Charles Xavier has had a bullshit reason to mind-fuck people. It appeaars to be another one of those trends that spans multiple universes on top of the trend that ensures Deadpool will always be batshit crazy. Charles Xavier comes off as this shining beacon of virtue, but behind the scenes he's a scheming, sleazy asshole who would gladly make you shit out your own brain cells if it made his mission a little easier. I probably shouldn't be too disappointed that Dazzler's crew came across yet another Xavier who spent too much time in Gary Busey's head. That is, after all, what set the stage for this crazy multi-verse spanning adventure going all the way back to Pak's Astonishing X-men run. But still, in a multi-verse that's infinitely big, is it too much to ask for at least one Charles Xavier that's not a total douche-bag?

Maybe Dazzler will find a universe like that in her journey. For now, her trip in this issue and the series as a whole continues to be wildly entertaining. Greg Pak continues to write her as a solid character, utilizing solid dialog while setting up some pretty amazing battles that involve gods, demi-gods, and psychics with way too much free time on their hands. Xtreme X-men is still a very different kind of book that some people will still bitch about because it doesn't really tie in with the other X-books. I consider these people to be the same assholes that double park their Hummers in handicap spots and refuse to take off that Bush/Cheney bumper sticker fron the back. These are comic fans that this series can do without. I give Xtreme X-men #3 a 4.5 out of 5. How can I give a book any less when it demonstrates an ability to twist my perceptions in a way that's entirely legal...for now. Mr. Pak, if you're watching this, keep an eye out for the DEA. You never know what kind of shit they'll ban next. Nuff said!